Categories

Meta

Category: Uncategorized

Having lived in Japan for several years, I was reassured to spot familiar convenience store and restaurant signs the minute I arrived in Taipei. Family Mart. Sushi Express. Royal Host. I’ll get around no problem, I told myself confidently. At this rate, I’ll be bustling about like a local!

Ahaha, oh past me, you’re funny.

In today’s post, I’d like to share with you the top moments where I was hit with a reminder of how differently Taiwan operates.

I feel almost bad to admit that, though I’ve been to Nagoya twice now, I have yet to hit up Nagoya Castle, the Tokugawa Museum, or most of the other “famous” places everyone expects you to go. However, I have found some great places to see in Aichi around Nagoya City. You may remember my post about the Totoro House; today, let’s take a look at Meiji Mura.

Learning to make local food is always a highlight for me when I travel. In Korea, I learned how to make dukbokki and not only ended up with a heap of delicious food, but with the satisfaction that I had learned about new ingredients and how to use them.

So when my friend came to visit me, we figured that trying some traditional Japanese food would be a great idea. The question was: sweet, or savory?

…Actually, I lied. That wasn’t a question at all. We both have huge sweet tooths.

Back in March, I participated in a writing competition through Writers in Kyoto. While I didn’t win, I was invited to take part in a local cultural event of some sort. There were two options to choose from: paper lantern-making, and gold paperweight-making. After choosing the latter, I arranged to meet a woman I’ll call Ms. S from the Kyoto Convention and Visitors Bureau at JR Yamashina Station. From there, she would make sure I made it to the workshop and, if necessary, provide translations.

While it was meant to be a group outing, it turned out to be just the two of us on a search for the home of an うるしさん (Urushi-san, someone who works with lacquer/gilding). Urushi-san are the people responsible for things like the gold you can see on Kinkakuji Temple in Kyoto; they affix things like very thinly sliced gold to various objects (whether it’s magnets, toy cars, or anything else you can imagine). Of course, they do many other jobs as well, but this was particularly pertinent because the workshop centered around gold leaf stamping.

This was both my and Ms. S’s first time heading into this particular neighborhood of Yamashina. While only ten minutes by taxi from the JR station, we were in a very residential area where the streets had no names listed and the house numbers were all out of order. After the taxi drove off, we had no idea where to go, and unfortunately, neither did the neighbors we asked for guidance. Fortunately, Ms. S had a phone number, and after calling it, my teacher for the day came bustling out of a building from the end of a dead-end street.

I am one of those people who refuses to stop halfway through a book unless it is truly terrible. I’m talking about, “My English teacher assigned a list of really boring, really horrible old books to read during the summer in the name of ‘expanding our horizons'” type of terrible. So when I pick up a book and it merely ranks a “meh” on my interest levels, I will be determined to plow through it.